“You noticed that too,” he said with a grin. “Very interesting indeed.”
“Do you know what language this is?” I ask.
“Yes,” he says. He looks around the room as if there is someone listening in. Leaning over the counter, he whispers, “It’s the angelic language.”
“Angels,” I say unconvinced. What is it with these people and their hokey religious nonsense? Mystic religions. Secret brotherhoods. And now angelic languages. Next he’ll be saying that Noah’s ark is parked out back. “You expect me to believe that this was written by angels.”
Rising back up, he lets out a sigh. “Not necessarily. Could have been written by one who knew the language.”
“You’re serious.”
“Oh yes, very serious.” He taps the sword with his hand. “This particular sword happens to be an angelic sword, said to belong to a Seraphim. Nearly impossible to find.”
Well it’s not Noah’s ark, but it’s enough to convince me that this guy is ready for an institution. He can’t possibly buy into this. I decide to push him on it. “And where did you get it? The internet?”
His mouth bunches into a dissatisfied frown. “No. Let’s just say I have connections. Some you wouldn’t want to associate with.”
By the looks of him, I would say he’s probably right, but I still like to push, “With the exception of the writing, it looks like an ordinary sword to me.”
“This is no ordinary sword,” he says. “It is said to be forged from the heart of a dying star. God himself wrote these words on it with his flaming tongue. And when this sword burns it burns like a thousand suns.”
“Looks like this one is broken,” I say, touching the cold sword with my finger. “No flames.”
“Flaming swords lie dormant until they’re wielded by their owner,” he says, sternly.
“Then wield it.”
“I can’t,” he exclaims. “I am not the proper owner.”
“So it’s a stolen angelic sword.”
“No,” he says, offended. “Let’s just say I am holding this sword for safe keeping until its owner arrives. You see each sword is especially made for its owner. It can’t be activated by anyone else. It’s completely useless to me.”
“So it’s just a glorified paper weight until its owner comes.”
“It’s still sharper and stronger than any man made sword. And can cut through any earthly material.”
I still don’t believe this guy. The idea of angels and flaming swords is completely crazy. No one in their right mind would believe it. I should just leave the store now, but at the same time, he does seem to know a lot about this stuff. Perhaps my mother got mixed up in this same insanity. It certainly would explain a lot. “So can you read the writing?” I ask.
“Some of it,” he says, picking up the sword. “But like the words in your locket. I only know what they represent; I can’t speak them the way they are supposed to be spoken.”
“What does it matter if you can’t speak it?”
“Because it is in the speaking of the words that lends them power. I can tell you what the words mean but the vocalization of each word is hidden. Only one with the true voice can speak them.”
“You mean the language can’t be spoken. What good is a language if it can’t be spoken? Was it lost or something?”
“No,” he says, running his fingers along the engraved words on the blade. “Most of the words can be spoken but only by those who know the language. Enoch, the prophet of the old, was said to know the spoken language of the angels. Before the tower of Babel, supposedly all men could. But this word…” Propping the sword on its point along the counter and turning it towards me, he points to a particular word. “This word is a hidden word. Meaning only the one who God has chosen to voice the word can speak it. A secret covered and sealed with six rings.”
“Six rings?”
He places his hand over his throat as if he is going to choke himself. “The six rings of your throat,” he says. “The one with the voice is the only one that can speak the word and give it power.” Placing the sword on the counter, he continues. “The same goes for the words in your locket. They are hidden and can only be spoken by the elect of God.”
“Who would that be?”
“I don’t know,” he says. “It’s your locket. Maybe it’s you.”
“It can’t be me,” I say. “I don’t even know what those symbols mean.”
“I can tell you what the three letters represent. The top one is the crown; the other two are wisdom and understanding. They are the first three emanations of God. The names over the three gates leading to God in the seventh heaven. When spoken they are ‘the three mother words’, used in the creation of the world.”
And he says that like it’s a known fact. He probably doesn’t even know how crazy he sounds. It’s just bread and butter to him. “Why would those be on this locket?” I ask.
“That’s a good question? I don’t know.” The shop keeper shrugs his shoulders. “It could be that the locket is just a keepsake of sentimental value given to you by your mother. The words could be nothing at all.”
“And the hair?”
“The hair could be your own or your mothers,” he says, returning the hair to its secret compartment and offering me the locket. I hold out my hands, cupped to receive it. He sets the locket in them and pours the rest of the chain as if it were liquid gold. At the last moment, he grips the end of the chain and says, “then again, this could be a talisman of great power.”
Tugging the chain from his hand, I take the locket and again secure it around my neck. Tucking it under my shirt, I press my hand against it. A talisman of power. That’s absurd. It’s probably just something she picked up from a junk sale. “Thank you for your time,” I say. “Be sure to tell Ethan I came by.”
“Of course.”
As I walk out the door, I stop a moment. Curiosity over takes me and I ask, “On the sword. The hidden word. What does it mean?”
The shop keeper peers at me over his specs and grins once more. “It’s the name of the angel who is to wield the sword. He is called by many names by many different people. We call him Abbadon.” He picks up the sword and holds it up to the light, and with a loud voice proclaims, “And he shall blacken out the sun and consume the Cosmos in his wrath. The holder of the keys of the bottomless pit, the great void. Abbadon, destroyer of all.” He ends with wrenching laughter.
I back out the door with a forced smile, closing it firmly behind me, convinced that I will never be going in there again. The guy is definitely off his rocker. I can see why townspeople don’t frequent his shop. I again press my hand against the locket under my shirt. Despite my skepticism, I can’t help but get caught up in the mystery of the locket. Perhaps my mother did have a reason for giving it to me.
Chapter 6
I meet Justine on the street outside the bookstore. She is carrying something in a large paper bag. Seeing that she is not distraught like she was before, I decide not to ask her about it. She greets me with her usual perky smile. “How was your visit?” she asks.
“Fine,” I reply, not wanting to go into the specifics of my discussion with the lunatic shop keeper. I am not even sure how that conversation would go. It probably would leave Justine in greater distress than she was before.
“So…how’s Ethan?” It’s evident that ‘fine’ will not squelch Justine’s curiosity.
“Ethan wasn’t there,” I say.
Disappointment falls over her like a dark specter. “That’s too bad.” I think she is more disappointed than I am. “It’s just last night; I really think I detected some chemistry between you two.” Reminiscing, she clasps her hands and raises one foot like a school girl who just got a new puppy. “Ahh, first love.”
“Wait a minute. I am just being friendly,” I say, straining not to blush. “And he is not my first love.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to embarrass you,” Justine says, lowering her excitement a bit. �
��It’s just; I remember when Jeff and I met. It was love at first sight. He took my breath away with all his talk about numbers and theorems.”
“Really,” I say. I can’t imagine anyone being twitter-pated over mathematical equations, but to each their own. Justine is lost in her thoughts, swaying back and forth. I need to put an end to this before it gets out of hand. “Right now we’re just friends and I would like to keep it that way. I have other prospects to think about.”
Justine looks at me blankly. “Other boys? But you just got here.”
“No,” I exclaim. “Not boys. College and maybe getting a job. You know, grown-up stuff.” Somehow I don’t think Justine has any idea about grown-up stuff. She seems like one of those women who get married out of high school to their high school sweet heart so they never have to grow up. Of course, with her and Jeff’s age difference, she must have married her high school math teacher.
“Certainly, college is very important,” she says, but I know in the back of her mind, she is envisioning me walking down the aisle with Ethan waiting at the altar.
Some first time fosters get big ideas of what it’s going to be like to have a foster child. Especially those who are looking toward adoption. They think they can fix you and make you into that perfect vision of the child they dream of. Of course, when they realize that you will never fit into that mold of perfection, they get buyer’s remorse and end up returning you, finding any excuse they can. I almost prefer the jerks. At least, with them you know they are getting rid of you, because they’re jerks and you rub them the wrong way. The types like the Gregor’s get rid of you because you aren’t good enough. You become just another dog at the pound who can’t be house broken.
Over the years, I’ve gotten used to it. At first, it hurt. Each time I tried harder, but then I would be put in a home where you were just assumed to be a delinquent and everything that went wrong was your fault. Every time the fosters spoke about me to others, it was always about what I did wrong and how ungrateful I was. I was just a symbol of their martyrdom, a reason for their affliction. And everyone always commented on how saintly they were for putting up with me. But that’s what all kids are to them, something to put up with, foster kids especially. Pretty soon, I stopped caring about what people wanted. I am who I am, and if people don’t like it, well…I look over at the church at the image of the people being pushed into the fire. A slight smirk comes over me. Good riddance to them.
“Weren’t you going to show me the bookstore,” I say to Justine, who is still lost in her romantic aspirations.
“Oh yes,” she says, shaking herself from her daydream. “Do you like reading?”
“It’s okay,” I reply.
“Well, I love reading,” she says. “You are just going to love it in here. They have the best selection of...” She hesitates as if she doesn’t want to say. “Umm. Religious books,” she finally blurts out.
When we enter the bookstore, Justine’s hesitation is apparent. The bookstore does have a religious section, which happens to be past the rather robust collection of harlequin romances. There are several housewives in their pious summer dresses, walking slowly down the aisle toward the religious books, glancing casually at the romance books as they go. Every now and again, when no one is looking, one of them snatches a book from the shelf and tucks it under her purse. I am beginning to understand why the women of this town fancy the bookstore so much.
The bookstore itself is small and cramped in the front, but extends far towards the back. A spiraling staircase held by four rusted bolts leads to the second floor. I decide to chance it in order to get to the teen fiction section. Justine stays below and heads toward the ‘religious books’. Like the other housewives, she doesn’t seem that hurried as she passes through the romance section. I laugh to myself as I watch her nervously stroll down the aisle.
Facing the staircase, a sense of dread comes over me. It looks as old as the church. If it were possible, I would swear the shop was built around the staircase. As I take my first step on the stairs, the bolts rattle and the mettle groans under the stress. I glance over at the clerk who has his head down as he is marking sale items. “Is this the only way up to the second floor,” I say. He nods without looking up. The winding steps taunt me with their sharp pointed surface, like cheese graters and screws protruding from vacant holes, and it is clear that this failure of architecture was not well thought through. I take a deep breath and continue upwards, trying not to shift my weight too dramatically as the staircase sways slightly from side to side. If ever there was a time to believe in God, this would be it.
At the top, I give a short expression of gratitude to be alive and continue on my way. The second floor is much like the first floor, only there is no one else up here. I imagine no one is stupid enough to come up the stairs. I start on the first row, browsing the titles as I go. I am currently at the wrong end of the alphabet, but I decide to continue perusing in case something pops out to me. As I am looking, my eyes extend beyond the rows of books to a figure standing a few rows over. Apparently, I am not alone. I turn my attention more to the figure and realize he is not staring at the books in front of him, but at me.
His eyes are a piercing blue. It’s him, I know it is. Though his face is partially hidden by the books, I can still recognize him as the stranger from the street, and the one from my dream. But if he is following me, how did he know I would be here. He would have had to come up the stairs before I did. That’s impossible unless he is some kind of clairvoyant stalker. I have to find out who this guy is and if he really is stalking me. Better here in a public place than on the street. Still, if he turns out to be a serial killer, by the time anyone gets up that staircase, I will be dead. But at least I will have the satisfaction of knowing he can’t escape. It’s this sense of justice that outweighs any other sensibility.
Pretending not to notice, I continue down the row, acting as casual as a person who is forced to act casual can. After crossing from one row to the next, I stoop down, pretending to look at a book on the lower shelf, again casually. Then, with the grace of a gopher, I hunch over and scurry my way down the row. My hope is to wind my way around and catch him off guard. However, before I get to the end of the row, the presence of someone standing in front of me, followed by feet entering my view, cues me in to the fact that I have just been found out. I stop short of colliding with him and with the greatest of elegance, I stand, raising my head up as if crawling rapidly along the ground is a perfectly sane thing to do. My only hope for not appearing insane is that an insane person would not appear this completely insane. Perhaps I could pull off eccentric.
“I know this seems crazy,” I say. “But I thought you were…” I stop, realizing there is no way that I can logically explain what just happened in any sane way that would be better than what he is thinking at this moment.
He looks at me as if studying me. Then with some hesitation he speaks. “I shouldn’t be talking to you.” His voice is impossibly smooth and faultless, like a calm lake without ripples.
“I know. Don’t talk to the crazy person. You’re probably safer that way.”
“That’s not what I mean,” he says. “It is against our way to talk to our stewards.”
Okay. Now he seems the crazy one. Something that I wouldn’t think possible after what I just did. “Stewards,” I say.
“The ones we watch over,” he says.
My heart sinks. “You’re a stalker, aren’t you? ‘Against our way.’ What are you, part of some international stalker club or something?” He starts to speak, but I refuse to give him a chance. “You know what, I don’t want to know.” I place my hand out to push him away, but he steps back as if he is repelled.
“Please, do not touch me,” he demands.
That’s rich. He doesn’t want me to touch him as if somehow my disruption of his stalking has greatly offended him. “If you don’t stop stalking me, I am going to do a lot more than touch you.” I pause, thinking about what I just s
aid. “That came out wrong. What I meant to say is that I am going to hurt you…I mean not in the…you know…never mind, just get out of my way.” I begin to walk past. He moves to the side so as not to make contact with me. Great, psychotic and a germaphobe.
“Wait,” he calls out. He reaches for me, but hesitates. “Don’t go.”
I stop and turn around, ready to give this guy a piece of my mind and anything else he has coming to him. “First, you don’t want me to touch you,” I exclaim, “then, you don’t want me to go. What do you want me to do, stand here so you can stare at me some more, you sick perve.”
“I do not mean to upset you,” he says.
“Then leave me alone.”
Angel Realms 01 The Dawn of Angels Page 6